Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!

Christ healing the two blind men.  Mosaic, completed 1315-1321.  Chora Church (Church of the Holy Savior in Chora), Constantinople

Now as they went out of Jericho, a great multitude followed Him.  And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!"  Then the multitude warned them that they should be quiet; but they cried out all the more, saying, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!"  So Jesus stood still and called them, and said, "What do you want Me to do for you?"  They said to Him, "Lord, that our eyes may be opened."  So Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes.  And immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed Him.

- Matthew 20:29-34

Yesterday we read that Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify.  And the third day He will rise again."  Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Him with her sons, kneeling down and asking something from Him.  And He said to her, "What do you wish?"  She said to Him, "Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom."  But Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you ask.  Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?"  They said to Him, "We are able."  So He said to them, "You will indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by My Father."  And when the ten heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers.  But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them.  Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.  And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave -- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

 Now as they went out of Jericho, a great multitude followed Him.  And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!"  Then the multitude warned them that they should be quiet; but they cried out all the more, saying, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!"  So Jesus stood still and called them, and said, "What do you want Me to do for you?"  They said to Him, "Lord, that our eyes may be opened."  So Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes.  And immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed Him.  My study bible points out to us that these two blind men greet Jesus as Lord, which is the common title for God, and also as Son of David, a title which is deeply associated with the Messiah.  Although Jesus knows what all of us want before we ask, He calls us to ask freely, my study bible says, so that we might learn of His mercy.  There is also by patristic tradition a spiritual interpretation of this miracle, with the blind men symbolizing the future generations such as ours, who will come to the faith only by hearing, without benefit of having seen Christ in person (see John 20:29).  The ones who try to silence the blind men are persecutors and tyrants who, in each generation, try to silence the Church and those who cling to their faith.  Nonetheless, even under persecution, the Church all the ore persists in confessing Christ.

The Evangelist John writes twice, "No one has seen God at any time."   In the Prologue to His Gospel, John writes, "No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him" (John 1:18); and in his first Epistle, he says, "No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us" (1 John 4:12).  Let us look carefully at these statements, and in relation to the commentary in which my study bible cites John's reporting of Jesus' words to Thomas after the Resurrection:  "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29).  There are all kinds of ways of perceiving, in accordance with the spiritual interpretation of today's passage.  To see physically with one's own eyesight is perhaps the least of the ways in which we can perceive God, and the things of God.  It takes more than that to perceive the things of God.  It takes a kind of capacity for faith that requires of us a different type of sensibility, a different sense and energy of perception, a different kind of "sight."  Let us note that for the Evangelist, there are two methods of perception noted in the passages quoted above.  One is hearing, as the Son (who spoke the world into existence in Genesis), declares God.  And the other method of perceiving is through love:  If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.  When Jesus speaks to Thomas in His appearance after the Resurrection, He doesn't say what method of perception others will use to come to faith, only that there are those who have not seen and yet have believed, and that they are blessed.  In today's story, the two blind men by the road display a faith that declares both that Jesus is Lord and that He is the Son of David, the Messiah -- He is both divine and human, the Anointed One.  He is not merely a glorified human being, or Good Teacher, but they really know who He is, He is the Messiah, both divine and human.  They understand innately, it seems, the Incarnation.  They grasp something about Him that others don't.  They also know He is merciful, and they reach out and grasp for that mercy.  The more they are told to be quiet, the more they persist in crying out for Christ's mercy.  Jesus' response is, "What do you want Me to do for you?"  This story tells us something about our own faith.  Perhaps it is those in need who perceive God the most.  Perhaps our senses which are not filled in the conventional ways, as through sight, are honed and sharpened to perceive and to find what we need all the more through a state of being in which we find ourselves in a "broken" and imperfect world, one beset with sin, in which it is hard to find and to see God.  Jericho was a place notorious for sin, and so this story appears in this particular place for a reason.  Sin is a way of blinding our sight spiritually.  Without a perception of God, we don't get a full picture of the world and its truth, its real created reality.  In yesterday's reading, Jesus gave us a picture of the world as the vineyard, and God as the vineyard owner.  We might go through life thinking that we see, and yet blind as to who the vineyard owner really is, or even that there is an owner.  We might go through life thinking that the ownership of our world is simply up for grabs, to whomever is the highest bidder, or the most ruthless or cunning, or simply the loudest.  We might go all through our lives blind to the fact of God's love and God's mercy and Christ's compassion, as displayed in this story.  We might, in fact, find that we are blind to our own capacity for shared love, and thus to God's presence as stated in the Epistle of John.  There are all kinds of ways in which we might be blind, but there is one thing for certain about real perception:  it changes the game.  Real seeing gives us a hook, an angle.  It behooves us to pray to God, to ask from Jesus for what we want.  There is a reason to suppose that the vineyard owner is really the One in charge, and there is a reason why it is love, in fact, that drives real life.  Without God in the picture, and without the declaration of the Son, we don't have any of that and we are blind to that strength which lies hidden within even an imperfect and a fallen world beset with what ails us.  We don't have God without real sight, and that is a pitiful thing indeed.  Let us pray for His light, so that we may truly see.